The Nightmare Begins
by SyphonNihility
Summary: This is the story of Vincent Valentine, pertaining to his relationship with Lucrecia, his life as a Turk, and how he became locked in a coffin in the Shinra basement
1. Default Chapter

The Nightmare Begins 

**1**

It's simply amazing what can happen if you just let your mind wander. When I was young I often wondered what dreams would be like if you were to never wake up. During my adolescence I mused myself with such dark humor. I thought that perhaps life would be better in an endless dream, because you could do whatever you wanted. But I know, now, that endless dreams aren't all that different from life. At least, endless nightmares aren't. You relive your worst memories over and over again until you wake up screaming in the dark, drenched in cold sweat. And then there is nothing to do but sleep and dream again, until your memory comes back to haunt you. 

_God how I miss you Lucrecia._

"You're late, Rachael."

"Shut up Tsang, you're an ass sometimes. I had things to do."

"Such as?" Tsang said, raising his right eyebrow.

"Such as: none-of-your-goddamn-business," Rachael replied, gathering her long dark brown hair into a ponytail.

Tsang scowled and locked eyes with Rachael. Opening his mouth to say something about being Rachael's superior, Vincent spoke, still facing the other direction. "What Tsang meant to say, Rachael," Vincent began, cutting Tsang off, "is we missed you and welcome back."

"How da-"

"Tsang I can honestly say that you do not wish to finish that sentence," Vincent stated calmly, discreetly using his rank to win the argument. Tsang's upper lip curled into a sneer and Rachael, who merely smiled. 

"So where we goin' next, Vince?" Rachael asked, returning to her normal bouncy mood.

"Back to Midgar."

"_Again_?" Rachael whined.

"Yes, again. We have been summoned for another mission."

"But we just finished one!"

"_We_," Tsang interrupted, "finished our mission a _month_ ago."

"_Tsang_!" Vincent shouted, turning around.

"What?" he snapped, turning to Vincent and staring down the barrel of a short-barreled rifle. "You…. You wouldn't."

"Mmm?"

"Y-you can't. Th-they'd come looking for me."

"Monsters got you. Such a pity." A wave of horror washed across Tsang's face.

"Vincent, they wouldn't have shot him, now would they've?" Rachael asked. 

Tsang was filled with momentary relief, as Vincent lowered his gun. "Tsang my friend, understand this: If I truly wanted to kill you, I would have. But we are Turks, and we are family. Therefore, my old friend, you don't make Rachael squirm I don't make you squirm. Understood?"

"I wasn't squirming! I'm a Turk!" Rachael yelled, annoyed that she'd been indirectly called weak.

"And as such you should not be put in a situation in which you should be made to censor your speech because a superior officer is being an asshole."

"But-" Tsang began.

"Calling me an asshole, Tsang?" Vincent smiled.

"No…" Tsang looked off. 

"Good then," Vincent grinned at Rachael, who smiled back. "Now get in the car, ladies."

"Are you calling me a lady, Vincent?"

"Are you offended by it, _Tsang_?" Rachael asked, pushing Tsang into the car while she got in.

"Now now kids don't fight, Daddy needs to drive," Vincent said, grinning and getting in.

***

"All the subjects tested went positive in less than 72 hours, Professor."

"All? Fully matured?"

"Yes."

"And their strength? Longevity?"

"Had it not been for the fact that we are Turks I do not believe we would have survived."

"Hmm… how much did the other Turks know?"

"Nothing. They just believed we ran across a terribly rare bunch of monsters."

"Perfect. The absolute secrecy of this must be kept."

"Yes, Professor."

"Hojo and I will be going to Nibelheim. The Turks will accompany us."

"Yes, Professor."

***

The sun rose slowly, as it did every morning, only slightly illuminating the dark and cold city of Midgar. Most of it was shrouded in perpetual night while the few very lucky, very wealthy, people lived where they could see the sun. Vincent walked these evenly paved streets, oblivious to the corruption underneath his very feet, where people lived in obscure poverty. In fact, he was oblivious to most everything as he walked to a home that he had visited many times over the past year and a half. 

_I don't want to wake her up… but I won't get a chance to see her later today…_ he thought, as he raised his hand to knock on the door. As his hand came down, however, the door opened, and a beautiful, brown haired woman began to walk out, carrying a suitcase. 

"Vincent!" she yelled, seeing him, dropping the suitcase, and throwing her arms around his neck. "I missed you so much!" 

"Good morning Lucrecia," he said softly, embracing her tighter. "I missed you too." He smiled, and she let him go and brushed away the hair that had just fallen into her eyes. 

"Just a good morning is all I get? No 'I love you' ? No 'Lucrecia every minute I was away from you I was in pain? ' Not even a kiss?" she grinned, flashing her teeth.

He kissed her for a moment, and then returned her grin while mocking being hurt by her comment. "But Lu I thought you were getting tired of all that. Since you know I do love you."

She kissed him again. "Did I ever tell you how much I love it when you call me Lu?"

"I love you," he said, again, voice soft.

"I love you too," Lucrecia replied, smile widening. 

"So… why are you up so early?" Vincent asked, as the sun began to shin on the streets.

"I… have some work to do with Professor Gast."

_Again?_ "Oh… but he's going to be leaving later today. Soon, in fact."

She picked up her suitcase. "I know. I'm going with him to Nibelheim."

Vincent was taken aback. "He… didn't mention anything to me. About it… you." _Why didn't he tell me_?

"He knows, Vincent… about us, I mean," Lucrecia looked at the ground.

_Oh god.._. "Then why do we have our jobs?" Vincent said, heart pounding.

"I… I made some concessions to him."

_Lucrecia what have you done…_ "Like what kind of concessions?" 

"Nothing much. I just have to separate my personal life from my business one. That's all."

_You're joking._ "That's it?"

"Yeah…" Lucrecia took Vincent's hand into her free hand and began walking down the street towards the Shinra headquarters building. "Come on, let's walk."

"Alright," Vincent replied happily, displaying a false grin and he and Lucrecia avoided talking about anything even remotely relating to their jobs._ There's something wrong with this… Professor Gast is never this easy on anyone… Why did he let us off the hook…._


	2. 2

**2**

_When I first woke here I tried to escape. I didn't even know where I was, just that it was small and dark. I had neither hunger, nor thirst, nor any other of the human needs that we take for granted. Except… the need to rest. Every moment I woke I struggled to maintain consciousness, for it always seemed to run from me like sand through an hourglass. But every second I was awake I thought of you. I longed for your lips again. To feel your cheek against my hand…. I'm so tired… _

_Please don't leave me again Lucrecia._

Rachael yawned sleepily. "Getting up this early sucks."

Vincent looked at her sternly, and through half closed eyes she realized and silenced her complaining. He looked over as Shinra troops were loading scientific instruments, as well as a very large assortment of books, into the Gelnika. The propellers blew Vincent's long black hair to his right, and turning, he saw three people emerge from the headquarters wearing white lab coats. One, rather thin and pale, emerged first, his black hair bound back in a ponytail. Another had short brown hair, in his early forty's and had a clipboard tucked under his arm. 

And the third to emerge was Lucrecia. Hair blown back by the Gelnika's propellers, she didn't even struggle to tame it. _Looks like smoke, Lucrecia. Like the incense in the pagoda in Wutai… you said you've never been happier than when you were in my arms and the incense flowed around us and up… I honestly don't think Professor Gast is going to let us off that easy…_

The sun rose to shed light on those on top of the building, and Tsang looked at his watch. "Time to go, Vincent."

Vincent looked back at him and silently nodded. All three Turks donned identical sunglasses simultaneously and began to walk towards the Gelnika; the three sets of blue suits and sunglasses moving in unison looked very imposing, which was why the Turks were always supposed to look as identical as possible.

Rachael whispered into Vincent's ear as they neared the heli-plane. "Why are we going to Nibelheim anyway?"

Vincent did not break stride, nor did he turn to his right. He merely murmured. "It is not ours to question why. An order is an order."

Tsang looked to his right at Vincent, thinking he had just commented out of nowhere. Rachael made a noise distinctly resounding of annoyance, but Vincent ignored it.

_I have more important things on my mind._

They entered the plane quietly, and found a comfortable room within it where the passengers were supposed to stay. Tsang, following Vincent's quick example, took a set next to his superior, while Rachael walked right past both of them and began to shadowbox, punching the air and dodging nonexistent attacks. Vincent spoke softly, but firmly.

"Sit down Rachael, the scientists will be here in a moment or two."

She shrugged her shoulders and continued to punch at the air.

_Goddamnit Rachael I'm not in the mood for this._ "Sit down Rachael."

She stopped and turned to him. "Why?"

"Because a certain degree of professionalism is expected of the Turks, of which you are now a part."

"Oh cut it Vincent." She turned back to face the wall and continued to shadowbox. 

_I really wish you'd listen to me Rachael_. He grabbed the back of her blue suit coat and spoke while pulling her into the chair next to his own. "I said sit _down_."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Rachael shouted, both surprised and angry.

"I…" The door opened, and the three figures in lab coats entered the room. The Turks fell silent, but the scientists continued their discussion, not caring in the slightest whether or not the Turks heard. The discussion was far too specific for any of the Turks to understand anyway.

"Specimen 36 showed some minute promise."

"You're joking, I scrapped 36 last night, it was a complete failure."

"No no no Hojo you scraped Vat Seven. That was Specimen 43."

"But the chart said-"

"Chart was wrong, I moved 36 last week. And how many times must the Professor tell you to check first before assuming you do something with an experiment?"

"And how many times must I tell _you_, Lucrecia, to change the charts when you make a change," Professor Gast chimed in, sitting down.

"Sorry professor," Lucrecia replied, sitting down, stealing a quick glance at Vincent, who was directly across from her, and then averting her eyes to the ceiling, where they spent focused for most of the trip. 

The Gelnika took off, and they began their five-hour flight to the mountain village of Nibelheim.  Behind his sunglasses Vincent gazed at Lucrecia, then at the Professor, and the back at Lucrecia again, his head completely motionless. Within five minutes Rachael had already fallen asleep, and Tsang was nodding off. Vincent felt amused for half a moment. _I need to remember to never take these two out early. Ever._

Professor Gast, within another five minutes, began to settle in for a nap while the Gelnika flew. Leaving Lucrecia, Vincent, and Hojo the only people awake in the room. Hojo had this strange smile on his face, and was keeping an obscenely close watch on Vincent's movements, even though there were none. Hojo's hand lazily made it's way and deliberately placed itself on Lucrecia's leg, all the while staring at Vincent. 

_Restrain yourself, restrain yourself._

Lucrecia calmly removed Hojo's hand, thinking of it as some sort of strange comical gesture. Hojo began again, this time apparently planning to move his hand further up her leg, and seeing this, Vincent stood quickly, forgetting his reprimand to himself, ripping the sunglasses from his face and staring into Hojo's eyes, and the slim man softly chuckled.

"Something wrong, Vincent?" Professor Gast asked sleepily to the man who stood strangely in the center of the room. 

Vincent turned his head. "No, nothing Professor. I just have to use the washroom." And he turned to leave. 

"Alright then," Gast muttered before falling back asleep.

In the hallway Vincent paced for quite some time before he started wandering around the Gelnika. _Hojo must know now too, I shouldn't have let him win like that but… damnit… scrawny little f***ing bastard…_

Eventually Vincent made his way to the cargo hold, and made his way among the crates and boxes till he came to a small corner that was directly under the catwalk that he entered the room through and mostly surrounded by crates. It was a very cozy hiding spot, and contained a relatively small cardboard box, which had different books on materia, concerning how it was formed, how it's used, ect. _Why the hell would they need stupid books like this?_

Vincent dug deeper, until, at the bottom of the box, he found a notebook. He opened to the first page, heart pounding, and read: "_Speculated Effects of the Introduction of Jenova Cells into a Mature Human Host._"

A wave of horror crept over Vincent. _I thought I was done with this Jenova stuff with those monsters… don't tell me we have to poison a human with this… but… What would happen? I mean… I wonder…_ And Vincent read on, feeling sick at the words: "…_most likely there will be multiple life cycles, considering that research shows that Jenova cells continue to mutate long after the host has died._"

Vincent continued to read the horrifying things that Professor Gast thought may happen when the Jenova cells were introduced into an adult human being. Then, about halfway through the notebook, the pages were blank for awhile, and then: "_Speculated Effects of the Introduction of Jenova Cells into a Fetal Human Host_" Vincent snapped the notebook shut and felt the strong urge to vomit. He knew of the grotesque things that Jenova cells did to monsters in the field, mutating them, giving them eyes and limbs in places where there was none. His spine shook. _Doing that to a baby… how can he even think of something like that? It's disgusting… It wouldn't even have a chance to live some sort of a life…  _His spine shuddered again.

Vincent closed his eyes, and methodically put the notebook back and covered it with the books it had been covered with before. He still felt sick to his stomach, but he had to get out of the cargo hold, lest someone think he was snooping. 

He found another dark corner of the Gelnika and rested there, checking his watch and making an attempt to fall asleep. However, when he closed his eyes he kept envisioning a baby being born with five arms, half a dozen eyes, and a few of its organs on the outside of its body. 

He was very tired by the time they reached Nibelheim.


	3. 3

**3**

_Of all the places in which to be locked away, and in a coffin no less, I could have never thought of a better one than this mansion. It is quite befitting of such a man as myself. It is so old… so quiet. The building in itself, I noticed this when I first came in, and although you were right beside me I could not have told you… but it felt… alone. The house in itself, the darkness, the soft light playing on the floor, the silence, I felt it. The house was so terribly alone, and no amount of monsters could have helped in that. It felt like that house wanted to be lived in… like it wanted company. And of course, the funny thing about that is it got some, didn't it?_

_For thirty years this old house has had me living inside it, locked away in a wood and metal box, never allowed to forget my own loneliness, as it never forgot its. Are we forever destined to be alone?_

When the Gelnika landed Vincent went to the room furnished for passengers in order to retrieve his Turks. When he entered, he saw that Lucrecia was soundly asleep between Tsang and Rachael, which gave Vincent a great feeling of relief. _She knows better than to fall asleep next to that urchin._ Vincent smiled in spite of himself. _Brilliant woman._

He looked at his Turks, still sound asleep, and said, in a voice no louder than he normally spoke. "Protocol 6." At once Tsang's eyes snapped open and he walked towards Vincent. Rachael, however, remained motionless. Seeing this, Tsang's eyes went wide, and looked back at Vincent silently pleading with Vincent to notice inadequacy in Rachael's performance as a Turk. Vincent merely smiled at Tsang. "Rachael although you may not want to wake up I gave you an order."

"Yeah yeah Vince, you know I'm awake, that makes you brilliant or something, right?" 

"That makes me a commander, simple as that. Come, we have things to do."

Rachael stood, annoyed, and proceeded to yawn and stretch simultaneously. Vincent walked out of the room, silently, followed by the still-scowling Tsang. 

The Gelnika had landed outside of Nibelheim, and the Shinra troops were unloading the Gelnika and bringing the cargo to the large mansion on the outer edge of the town. Vincent looked at the mansion, walking beside a large crate carried by several troops, and smiled. _That mansion… dark, foreboding, excluded, and owned by Shinra. Sounds like me…_Vincent sighed. 

He noticed, though, as he passed by the center of town, which happened to be a well, that all the troops were leaving the crates outside the mansion. _What the hell are they doing?_

"Commander?" Vincent asked as he, Tsang, and Rachael walked up the stone pathway through the crate-filled lawn, "Why is none of this going inside?"

"Orders from Professor Gast, sir. He said that the Turks were to clean out the house."

"Excuse me?" momentarily thinking of mops and brooms.

"Professor Gast informs us that there is a monster infestation within the mansion, but we have been inside and all parts of the mansion are furnished and monster free, so I am not entirely sure why I was given the order that I was given."

"But you carried it out, since you are not paid to think. Very good then, I will wait for the Professor." The soldier was taken aback and stalked away, angrily barking orders at his subordinates. Rachael looked at Vincent with a face full of disbelief, but Vincent shook his head. "Rachael they're trained to be used to the abuse. They expect it. Don't go soft on them, you _are_ a Turk."

Rachael frowned and Vincent let it pass. _So we're here to be exterminators. Wonderful. Just wonderful._

The sun had been setting for some time before Professor Gast, Hojo, and Lucrecia, could be seen walking toward the mansion. The troops were scattered among the forest of crates, laughing and joking amongst themselves while waiting for the three scientists to emerge. 

When they arrived at the mansion, Rachel was sitting atop one of the crates, dangling her legs for the strange amusement of someone who had been horribly bored far more than she wanted to. Tsang looked no more excited, as he was slumped against the wall with eyes half closed. Vincent was the only seemingly attentive one, who was standing with his hands behind his back, hair behind him as well.

"Oh, hello Vincent. How long have you been waiting here?" Professor Gast said, making Tsang quickly stand up and alert and making Rachael gracefully jump off the crate and land behind Vincent.

"We left the Gelnika when the ship landed," Vincent replied calmly.

"The troops tell me that was more than three hours ago."

"Oh?" Vincent responded, very calmly holding back the rage of Tsang and Rachael at their mistreatment.

Professor Gast seemed flustered, as if he had sensed undetectable malice in Vincent's reply. "Well… let's begin. There is a monster infestation in this mansion that you need to clean out."

_The troops tell Me, that you are going senile. Early, too._ "Where is this infestation? Does it manifest itself in a particular portion of the house?" Vincent asked innocently.

"Yes, in fact, it does," Professor Gast said, opening the door to a very spacious room 

The room was immense and eerily empty, lit from three massive windows on the other end of the room and on the second floor. Two carpeted semicircle staircases on either side of the room met at a platform which had a few stairs leading up to the hallway directly beneath the set of windows. The windows, and all the other windows in the mansion, were covered in a beautifully designed thin metal latticework, so that when the sun was shining through them, as the setting sun was not doing, One could clearly see the designs in the light the windows shed on the floor. The walls were white, or at least, they had the intention of being white. The dust and grime and filth seemed to have other ideas for the walls, making them a musty sort of white-gray-brown. A wrought iron chandelier hung above their heads, and the floors and the molding were of a dark wood, though it was undeterminable what color they really were, as everything in the house was dark. 

Despite the beauty the house possessed, something else filled the mansion like air: the essence of age. The immense weight and sense of ancientness could be felt by every person in the room. _No one's lived here for years…_

"This is the Shinra mansion," said Professor Gast, cool and calm. "Built before electric lights, unfortunately, so we have to rely on candles for this part of the mansion." He turned around and locked eyes with Vincent. "But there is, of course, more than meets the eye here." Vincent raised his eyebrow, but at once Professor Gast turned around and walked up the right semicircle stair, and the Turks closely followed him, who were followed by the remaining two people in white lab coats. 

Professor Gast ascended the stairs, turned right, walked a dozen steps, then turned right again into a side room, and left into an office. All the people in the room save the professor were confused, which was, to him, amusing. "Mister Ouritsu? I would like you to punch that column over there," the professor said, pointing to an enormous stone column in one corner of the room.

Tsang looked at Professor Gast in slight shock in part because he had known Tsang's surname, and also because Tsang had just been ordered to punch a wall. For a moment Tsang paused, but no more than a moment. "Yes sir," Tsang replied, his voice shaky. Quickly he walked over to the column and examined it briefly. Then he squeezed his eyes shut. He punched and… the fake panel went the way its hinges directed it to without the slightest incident. Vincent could barely hear the almost inaudible whisper of "thank god."

"Down there is where the infestation resides, so down there is where I require you three to go. There is one particular monster that is causing us trouble, and the rest will be simple enough to take care of on a case-to-case basis. Therefore, Vincent, I want you to take your Turks, eliminate the threat, and report back here when finished. Understood?"

All three Turks nodded in unison, and one by one they walked through the place where the fake panel stood. The column was obviously larger than was apparent when looked at from back inside the room, as it contained a tall, spiral, wooden staircase which the Turks followed down to the secret basement. 

The emerged into a roughly made passageway, with dirt walls, ceiling, and floor, which was lit, although dimly, by the immense light filtering in through the column they had just come from. Wooden buttresses were sporadically placed along the passageway, and the Turks waked down until they found a large alcove to the left. A pair of enormous yellow, luminous eyes stared at them, and then, shortly after, another pair opened. 

Rachael at once drew identical pistols from two holsters behind her back, Tsang rolled up his right sleeve, exposing an armband that had in it materia, and, now the orbs of materia began to glow, sensing their use would be needed soon. Vincent remained motionless, leaving the rifle, which was hanging in a holster, its barrel going past Vincent's knee, Untouched. 

"Hello?" Vincent asked, calmly, as the monster snarled and started towards them. At once Rachael fires six shots at one of the pairs of eyes, but this only enraged the creature more. "Five left," at once Rachael, Tsang, and Vincent took five large steps backwards to their left, back into the passageway, just in time to dodge an enormous bolt of lightning that seemingly came from the monster. 

When the monster emerged into the light, so as to chase the feigned retreat of the Turks, Vincent saw that the thing did indeed have two heads, his skin was gray and brown on it's chest, with some strange mutations on its arms. 

"Wonderful," Vincent heard Tsang mutter. 

_Oh Tsang how right you are._ "Tsang, reflect. Rachael once he has cast reflect I want you to fire at its legs."

"But…" Rachael began, and in that moment a crystal of ice formed around her left arm and shattered in an instant, slicing up her suit and her skin. "F***!"

"_Just do what I say!_" Vincent roared, and immediately Tsang muttered something, while his feet were surrounded by green light. It took a moment, and then all the Turks were shielded in pale, translucent, yellow-green shells. While this occurred Vincent drew his rifle and darted over to the monster and dodged his massive, deformed arm coming down to crush him, Rachael began firing at the thing's feet while Vincent, possessing an eloquence unmatched with so long of a rifle, jumped, kicked the monster square in the back with both feet, used the force to push himself backwards, and in midair he held his rifle so that the end of the barrel was no more than an inch away from the left head and pulled the trigger.

Blood, skin, bone, and brain splattered everywhere, and the monster screamed in utter pain. The bullet whizzed by in-between Tsang and Rachael, where Vincent had been standing only a moment before. The black blood squirted profusely from where a head had once been and during  its screams of pain, three separate bolts of lighting roared from the monster towards the Turks, but as soon as the lightning bolts hit the yellow-green shells, they surrounded the shells and then, in unison, went straight back to the monster, who howled as he was fried to a crisp. ****

Vincent landed, cat-like, and brushed the hair out of his eyes. "Perfection, is what I demand of you. Absolute perfection. Never before has the Turk regimen been so hard, and I doubt if those that will take my place will be so hard, assuming it's neither of you two. I demand perfection. Tsang you hesitated, which means that Rachael now is bleeding," Vincent said, walking over the smoking and blackened corpse of the monster they had just defeated. "And Rachael, you questioned me, which should _never_ happen as long as I am around. Is this understood?"

Both of the other Turks nodded. "R_egenerencia,"_ Vincent whispered, touching Rachael's bleeding arm. At once the wounds began to quickly heal themselves. "Tsang, had you waited like that with a real soldier, she would have been dead. Our armor is a bit stronger, though." Tsang looked at the ground. "All and all you did well, and I feel you both know that. But you must know your mistakes before you can rejoice in your successes. Now come, let us inform the Professor he has nothing to worry about."

"Vincent?" Rachael murmured, the last of her wounds closing, "what about that door at the end of the hallway?" 

Vincent turned around and saw, indeed, a door at the end of the hallway, but calmly dismissed it. "That wasn't part of our mission, though if the Professor instructs us to go down there we will. Initiative is one thing, disobeying orders is another, alright?"

"Yeah."

"Let's go, then."


	4. 4

**4**

_Lucrecia… I never got a chance to say this while you were alive, so now I suppose would be the right time. When we are trained as Turks we go through a rigorous mental conditioning program. We have to be able to steel ourselves in case there is an order that we must carry out but find difficult. Or impossible. An order is an order. And we don't just lose our jobs if we're insubordinate. It is a Turk's duty to find and kill any member who runs away… but that's not why I did what I did, I guess. I guess I did it because… I liked being a Turk. I liked following orders. Well… I don't know, it makes no sense now. I don't really know why I did what I did. Maybe it was to show Gast we aren't are actions… I don't know._

_But of the two things I truly regret in my life, that was one._

The troops were dismissed, and all of the shifting of equipment from the lawn to the secret basement was done by the six people who were aware of its existence, though mainly the Turks manually moved things while the scientists directed where things ought to go and connected equipment together once it was down at the room at the end of the passageway. 

When it was all finished, the doorway at the end of the hall led to a laboratory, now, with an operating table, two large tanks, and other assorted scientific equipment. There was a short hallway between the laboratory and a private office, and both the office and the hallway's walls were lined with bookshelves, filled with books, for that is what much of the cargo had been (though the bigger items were pieces of equipment which had to be assembled in the laboratory itself.) And, the Turks having outlived their main usefulness, they were sent to do random odd jobs for Professor Gast, most of which required some strange experiments in the Mako reactor up in Mount Nibel. 

Vincent, despite the flagrant misuse of his and his Turks' talents, was glad to be in Nibelheim, where he could be near to Lucrecia. Every night he slept in the mansion he woke out of a dead sleep, always at twelve fifty seven, and walked out one of the back doors, to sit in the grove of trees in the moonlight, and wait for Lucrecia. Though they had agreed on the time she had to sneak by both Professor Gast and Hojo, which the creaky floorboards made difficult. But the sparseness of her visits, which were no more than once every few weeks, made them all the more precious to Vincent. To hear her naked feet brushing against the unkempt grass. To feel her footsteps in the soft earth behind him. This is what he lived for. The moments in between the mundaneness of the day and the restlessness of the nights. Only an hour or two every few weeks, but at least that.

When they met they would talk, not about her work, since she was not at liberty to tell him and he knew better to ask or even care for that matter. Instead they discussed what they would do when they got away, how they would settle in the little town like Nibelheim where the community was so close and comforting. Or how they would honeymoon in somewhere exotic or somewhat dangerous, so that, she said, she would have her Vincent protect her. They mused like this, while the moon beamed on them, even though they knew their lives were owned by Shinra and they knew too much to ever be let go on their own outside the confines of Shinra. But that didn't matter, not in those late night conversations with each other. They were happy, and thought nothing could change that. 

***

It was one forty five when Vincent rose from where he had been sitting, thinking that Lucrecia had not been able to sneak past her "guards." However, turning back to the house, he saw her, and she ran towards him, and held him tightly, her face stained with tears. Vincent held her and spoke softly, his voice softer than even normal times when he spoke to her, which was softened quite a bit anyway.

"Shhshhshhh," he began, as if she was a little girl with a nightmare, "what's wrong, my love?"

She wept even harder, squeezing him tighter, as if she were to release him he would turn to ash and blow away. Vincent listened hard through the sobbing and sniffling, finally discerning the words "you're… you're leaving me…"

_She must have had a nightmare…_ "I could never do such a thing. I will never leave you Lucrecia, I love you," he whispered. Again, the same result, as she began to weep with more fervor. 

"Y-y-you don't," she sniffled, "understand. Y-y-you _are_ going to leave me. You have to."

"I would rather die."

She looked at him, lower lip trembling, but her sobbing silent. She took in his eyes before she spoke again. "You will if you don't go,"  her sobbing began anew.

_Professor Gast…_ "Then he'll have to kill me. Lucrecia I'm not going to leave you. He can't make me."

She squeezed him tighter as she wept. "He knows that…" she sniffled, "which is why I'm making you."

"What?"

She looked up into his eyes now, and he looked into hers, red and puffy and full of tears. "I… I can't let you die Vincent. I can't… just go… please… for me… so you'll be safe."

_Will you be happier if I'm gone? No of course you wouldn't… would you?_ "What did he tell you? When he caught you, I mean? What is he threatening _you_ with?" _She wouldn't do this if it was just about me… we'd run off together… or something…_

"It doesn't matter Vincent…." She sniffled, "it doesn't matter…"

He took her by the shoulders and stared at her eyes, which were now darting around through the haze of tears. "_What did he threaten you with_?" he said, his voice not so soft nor quiet as it normally was at this time of night.

"He didn't… he said… that you were using me… to get to my father… he… showed me pictures… of you with other women… he… told me the most awful things."

"_And you believed him? They're fucking lies!" _Vincent roared, furious.

She whimpered, trembling under the power he projected. "b-b-but the pictures…."

"_Can be falsified_! I have never loved another woman _nor_ have thought of Doctor Nunya as _anything _besides than my future stepfather…" Vincent trailed off, as Lucrecia continued to tremble. He stared at her, her beautiful face, high cheekbones, normally perfect eyes, though they lost little of their perfection even in the torrent of tears, her hair which looked black in the pale moonlight behind her back… and his anger vanished. His face became infinitely calm, which was more terrifying than when he had been angry. It was the look of a man who had accepted his own death, and felt no pain because of it. "I have always loved you Lucrecia. I will always love you. When I am dust I will love you. But you have never loved me, if you could do this." Vincent said that as valediction and walked past her, towards the mansion. 

"Vincent wait, you know that's not true… Vincent…. _Vincent_… _Vincent_!" she screamed, as he opened the door to go inside. He turned to look at her, her body a mere silhouette in the dark… she looked like a wraith. "I love you Vincent," she said.

"Indeed," he replied, all too calmly, and went inside.

***

Vincent spent the night staring at the wall as he sat on his bed in the Shinra mansion. The sun rose, the light filtered into his room through he latticework on the windowpanes, but he noticed no change. Breakfast was made, most likely by Tsang, who, surprisingly enough, knew how to cook. The smells wafted up into his room, the airborne dust visible in the rays of sunlight, the sounds of silverware clattering and scraping against plates; he was oblivious to it all. His mind was immersed in what was to happen, and he waited calmly until breakfast was finished. 

He was still in the same blue suit he had worn for the past day, the other six of which were hanging in the closet, when he came downstairs and saw Rachael and Lucrecia doing dishes, Rachael wearing only her blue pants and white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up past her elbows, singing "if I have to do one more menial thing like dishes again I will scream," which had no melody or rhythm whatsoever, causing both herself and Lucrecia to giggle, the latter more on a pretense though. 

Rachael had her arms deep in the soapy water while Lucrecia dried a plate when Vincent spoke. "Lucrecia we can leave together right now. Shinra can't try to catch us forever…"

She placed the plate down with elaborate slowness, and set the towel on top of it. Rachael turned to look at Vincent, albeit quixotically. "Vincent I can't come with you," Lucrecia said, not turning around.

Vincent was taken aback. He didn't know what to do now, for the past seven hours had been composed of the decision to do what he did, and hope that she would run into his arms and they would go off together and… _But that's foolishness… I have to go now_… Vincent turned to leave. 

"And you're wrong, Vincent. Tsang and I can't be given any new orders 'till we capture you or your head, technically," Rachael mused, though Vincent was unaware of the humor. He spun on his heels and grabbed the front of her shirt. 

"_Then take it_!" he roared, and Rachael's jaw dropped. "I don't need this… goodbye Rachael. Tell Tsang you're head of the Turks now, I'd hate to think what he'd do to you if _he_ was," and Vincent left. 

***

Vincent had not been in the fields to the south of Nibelheim for twenty minutes before Tsang and Rachael caught up with him, both exhausted from running. Vincent spun on his heels while pulling his rifle from its holster and fired special shotgun shells he had loaded it with earlier. Immediately Tsang and Rachael's breathing, already ragged, was slowed immensely. All their functions were slowed, in fact, and Vincent merely smiled.

"Slow petrifaction," he said, walking around them both. "You know the fun thing about it is I could sit down right here," he said, sitting down so that he was completely behind them, "in the time it would take you to turn completely around, draw your guns, and aim, you turn to stone _right_ before you pulled the trigger." Vincent smiled. "So what brings you here, and let us hope it's not just to kill me, because you did a piss poor job of that."

"Gast….." Rachael managed to say, the word long and drawn out.

"Yeah, what about him?"

"Wants you….." she finished. 

"_Esuna_," Vincent murmured, waving his right hand at Rachael. Her slowness left her, and the onset of the stiffening of her entire body left as well, which meant that all of a sudden her muscles needed to be used, and unprepared for this, she tumbled to the ground. 

"_Damnit Vincent!"_ she shouted, pulling a package from her suit jacket and throwing it at his head. "From the Professor, those are your orders. Our orders."

Vincent picked up the package and threw it back at Rachael. "I'm AWOL. I cannot take orders."

She threw them back at him. "Like hell you can't." 

"Help…" she heard Tsang mutter before he became a statue completely. Rachael burst into laughter, and Vincent chuckled as well. 

"I think it's an improvement, don't you?" she grinned at Vincent, but the grin quickly faded. "Look Vince you can't deny them from me. If you're going about it that way you have to shove them in Gast's face, not mine. And Lucrecia… well…"

Vincent's face went from calm to enraged in an instant. "Talk ill about the woman I love and you will find I have real bullets that I can use as well." Rachael nodded, not afraid, just acknowledging. Vincent respected that and stood, healing Tsang, who collapsed as Vincent turned back to Nibelheim. "Come. I need to deliver my rejection now."

***

Vincent, followed by the other Turks, walked back into town, and noticed two people in white lab coats . Lucrecia had his arms around Professor Gast's neck, weeping into his shoulder. 

Vincent was taken aback, but immediately told himself what he thought he should feel. _As long as she's happy, then I don't care…_

"Vincent Valentine," Professor Gast shouted, angry. "within the package Rachael gave you are all the papers releasing the Turks. The headquarters, however, allowed me to send you on a final mission, and if you accept it, I never want to see your face again, nor do I ever want to hear of you being around this woman. If you do not accept the mission, then you can die right now."

_I'd rather die than see what I'm seeing… no… no that's not right… she's happier… she must be…_ "I accept the mission," Vincent said, having not yet opened the package. 

"But Vincent you haven't…" Rachael began.

"It's done, let's go."

"Yes sir," Tsang said.

"Yes sir," Rachael repeated, which was one of the first times she said so without a hint of sarcasm.

They walked in silence, and at noon Vincent sat down, with the illusion that they could rest, while he was actually opening the package. Indeed, there was the proper paperwork to release the Turks from Gast's command. There were also four syringes filled with a red-orange liquid, and underneath those, was a picture and details concerning how the murder of doctor Jeryl Nunya was supposed to take place. Vincent used his cell phone to have a helicopter pick the Turks up so they could go to Junon as he inwardly searched for the remnants of who he used to be.


	5. 5

**5**

 _After awhile I took this as a penance. I was locked here, so perhaps I deserved to be locked here. Perhaps I deserved to lose your love, I do not know. I have barely enough conscious time to speak to you, or whatever I am doing right now, let alone think about why I am truly here. But in the infinitesimal time that I do possess, I have come to think that this is my punishment for what they did to you. What you let them do to you, even though in my heart I know you didn't want that. I wept for you, as I am weeping right now._

_I do not know where this water comes from, since I have not taken it in for so long. Perhaps I have been granted an endless supply of tears merely so that I may weep for you._

Junon smelled. Reeked, is a better word for it. The residents knew nothing of this smell, or of how odd it was, because they had attuned themselves to it. But to Vincent, who had lived in a miniscule mountain village for the past few months, he could smell every ounce of exhaust in the air, every particle of machine oil, every hint of industry there was. And if he could be made any sicker than he already was at himself for committing his mind to follow his next order, then he was made sicker. Neither Rachael nor Tsang spoke since their landing in Junon. Neither did Vincent, and although they all found their way through the metal walls and metal streets of Junon perfectly fine, he gave them a bland notice when they reached a particular building that that was the hotel they were to stay in. They entered their three separate, identical, adjacent rooms, which were merely functional and nothing else. Rachael fell right to sleep on her bed, exhausted. Tsang followed much the same, though he took off his shoes and clothing first. Vincent did not sleep. Instead he read the order over and over again. 

He was to find two soldiers, lowly and green, but strong, and bring them to the apartment of Doctor Jeryl Nunya. Vincent was then supposed to have these two soldiers hold the doctor down while he injected a syringe-full of a Jenova cocktail into each of Doctor Nunya's arms and then each of his legs. When this was finished, Vincent was supposed to lock all the windows and doors save the one he was to leave through, which he would lock upon leaving the room. Then he was to murder these soldiers in cold blood, a bullet to each of their brains, and then leave the door and lock it behind him. He was then to return in six hours with his Turks and kill Jeryl Nunya, or whatever was left of him after the Jenova cells had replicated in his body and made it theirs. When he was dead, completely, they were set off a bomb in the apartment of the doctor so that any evidence was destroyed. 

Clean cut, simple, and cold. The only problem was the bomb. The street-facing walls in Junon were made of solid metal, so Vincent needed something that would blow through that. He sat there, his mind running through every weapons dealer he knew, until he came to the obvious conclusion, which was only "obvious" _after_ he had thought of it, that the best place to acquire a proper weapon would be from the Shinra stockpiles, and no one had more stockpiles of Shinra's things that Junon. So, no more than fifteen minutes after he had sat down, Vincent rose again and walked to Shinra's weapons building. Though not before he had read the mission again and had placed the syringes in his coat pocket. The weapons building was no different than any of the other buildings in Junon, since they all gave the distinct appearance that they were welded together. However, Vincent knew it, entered, and found, sleeping next to a pile of ammunition, Ashland and Green, think in muscle and in mind, wearing the Shinra blue military uniforms. 

Though their names were irrelevant to him since they served his purpose perfectly. Served two of his purposes perfectly. He kicked at their books for an instant. "Wake up." They both shifted but did not rise. Vincent rapped them again, but still they failed to rise. Finally, annoyed, he kicked one of them so hard that the soldier yelped in pain and rose to his feet.

 "Who in the f…" almost immediately he realized the suit wasn't the garb of a businessman, the black hair man before Green was, in fact, a Turk. "Oh! Sorry sir, please how may I help you sir?" The other unconscious man snored. Green panicked and kicked Ashland in the side. 

"F****** b****** what the hell did you do _that_ for?" Ashland yelled, rising. 

"_A Turk's here, shut up!_" Green snapped, and immediately Ashland stood to attention.

"I need an explosive," Vincent said, smiling.

"What kind, sir?" Green replied, sounding as professional as possible. 

Vincent dropped his smile. _I can tell them whatever, since they won't live through the morning…_ "Something that will blow apart an apartment with a eight inch steel wall on one of the sides."

The soldiers looked at each other nervously. "To blow up…. An apartment…. In Junon?"

"Yes, do you have anything for that?"

The soldiers again exchanged looks, but Mark spoke first, since he was apparently intent on saying everything. "Yes sir."

Vincent raised his eyebrow, as both of them were motionless. "Can you… get it for me?"

"Oh! Yes sir!" Ashland piped up, running off into the back and up some stairs. 

Green smiled nervously as Vincent began to look around. "Drop the façade soldier. Don't smile if you don't feel like it. But you will answer my questions, whether or not you want to. First of which what is your name? Surname, if you please."

"Mine is Green. That's my brother, his last name is Ashland," Green responded, dropping his guise of professionalism.

"Brothers normally share the same last name," Vincent said, raising his eyebrow.

"Well both our families were killed off by monsters, so we stick together, me and him," Green smiled.

_Perfect_. Vincent smiled at him, and down the stairs bounded Ashland, with something no bigger than a video tape. He ran into a wall and Green jumped. "_Rick_!" he shouted, but Ashland just smiled and handed this box to Vincent. 

"It can stick to walls and is timed. So you gotta get out before it goes off," he said, beaming.

Vincent smiled. "And this will blow out the apartment?"

The soldiers exchanged looks again. "Yes… yes sir."

"Good then, now come with me," Vincent said, turning to leave.

"Wha-? Sir we can't leave… orders," Green began.

"As a direct order you will come with me," Vincent said, leaving and tucking the video cassette box into his suit jacket.

Vincent waited and in a few seconds he heard the door to the weapons building close behind him and the soldiers joined Vincent. "Where are we off to, sir?"

"Come," Vincent said, leading them down to an address he had already memorized.

***

They entered Jeryl's apartment with no more resistance than one would find in the air when they fell to the ground. Vincent calmly opened the door, using a code provided to him by Shinra, and entered, light filling the room. There were several computers running at the same time, performing experiments and such. Printers occasionally printed out things, things bubbled here and there, and it was amazing how any person could get any work done with their entire living space filled with experiments. _I used to love this man like a father… nono… no shut up! Shut up! This is an order goddamn you_

Vincent walked over to the doctor, who was sleeping in a chair with a suit on, obviously collapsed from exhaustion. On the way to the collapsed doctor Vincent accidentally knocked over two tables but took absolutely no notice of it, which horrified the soldiers who were following him into the room, trading on broken glass.

"Wha- huh? Who are you people?" the doctor asked, squinting in the light and half asleep. Vincent pushed the doctor in his chair against a wall and spoke to the two soldiers. "Hold him down." Vincent stood and looked back at the two soldiers, who were staring at him in horror. "Hold him down _now_," Vincent barked, and they obeyed, though ashamed that they were holding down an old man. Vincent then retrieved the syringes, one at a time, and injected them into the doctors arms and legs. His body began to convulse immediately, so had the soldiers not been holding him down, there would have been no way for Vincent to empty all four vials. Then he dropped them, stood, and began to lock all the doors and windows, knocking over anything that was in his way. This led to nervousness in the soldiers, who were now using all their strength to subdue, so they didn't have all that much time to contemplate why Vincent was locking all the doors. He then began to leave, stopping in the doorway and checking his watch, and the soldiers focused their energy at the doctor who was now foaming at the mouth. Ashland turned to look back on Vincent, just in time to see the gun pointed at his head. "Thank you boys," Vincent said, as he pulled the trigger twice, then aimed at Green and fired twice as well. Both soldiers fell dead and Jeryl sprung from his captors and bounded to Vincent, but by the time Jeryl had reached the door Vincent had shut the door and locked it, and all the remnants of Jeryl could do was pound and scratch.

***

The Turks walked silently on the metal streets of Junon, and the noise around them was minimal, since it was dawn. They were on the street beneath the apartment where Doctor Nunya took up residence. Vincent stopped and looked up, _Window's still intact_, and he lowered his gaze. As he did, however, the window he had been focusing on shattered and a corpse flew through and landed somewhat in front of the Turks. Conditioned as they were, they calmly regarded this and looked up to see another corpse fly out of the window and land atop the first. Vincent blithely remembered their names: Green and Ashland. A third being then emerged, well, _jumped_ from the window, and landed on top of the corpses, making them more crushed then they had been before. 

The third being looked very human, but his skin was a very nasty shade of green, and his moth had enormous slits on the corners running across his cheeks, so that when he landed and opened his mouth, those slits revealed themselves to be extensions of his mouth, so that the top of his head would've fallen off had there not been a thin lining on the inside of his mouth around the dozen sets of sharp, cone-like teeth he contained within his head.

"Well this is just wonderful," Tsang muttered, rolling up his sleeve.

Rachael drew her guns and asked Vincent quietly. "We killin this…. Thing, cuz it killed those soldiers? They look like they've been rotting for awhile…. But not for all that long… Vincent?"

Vincent was staring at the monster on the corpses of soldiers he killed, and remembered reading a notebook in which what he saw before him was predicted to happen. He swallowed hard and took out his rifle. "Throw everything you have at it. I mean _everything_. Hold nothing back," he ordered, ignoring Rachael's question. 

Almost immediately Rachael began to fire at the monster's head, blasting it to pieces. It staggered backward for a few steps, picked up its disconnected head, placed it back on top of its lower jaw, and roared.

"Oh sh**…" Tsang said, casting Barrier on himself and his two companions. 

Rachael emptied her cartridges and let them slide out of the handguns. All the wounds the monster incurred healed slowly, and the Turks looked at one another as the monster advanced. "_Fry it_!" Vincent yelled, shooting the breastbone with his rifle with his high caliber shells. The first made the thing stagger backwards. The second knocked him down. Vincent roared: "_Now_!"

"But," Tsang began.

"NOW!" Vincent screamed, as the monster began to shudder on the ground. 

"_Thundaga!_" Tsang yelled immediately, as if he was replying to Vincent. A column of purple smoke above the body of the monster formed, and in a moment a bolt of lightning seared through the column of smoke, lighting and causing every speck of smoke to explode so the force that finally reached the monster was a mixture of high electricity and flame. It screamed, wailing and smoking, and died. 

Rachael smiled, happy, and Tsang wiped the sweat from the brow of his forehead with his bare arm. "It's not over," Vincent said, calmly.

As if obeying Vincent's words, the body of the monster bulged, and the split open down the middle. Out of the opening rose a creature that looked very similar to a large, elongated, gray egg with a tail and wings, nearly resembling a cross. It possessed a smile and eyes that had a permanent look of mania, since the features seemed to be painted on. 

Vincent saw the new monster curl its tail and immediately shouted "_Mirrona,_" and, unlike when Tsang cast the same spell in an earlier battle the Turks had, yellow-green shells were _immediately_ created around the three people in blue suits. Therefore, when, a moment later, the monster straightened its tail and the same spell that Tsang cast on it's previous form was now cast on the Turks, columns of purple smoke already above all their heads, the lightning seared through the people smoke, surrounded the shells, and the bolts soared right to the monster. Instead of charring it, like they had hoped,  the monster absorbed the electricity, and, in fact, grew thin arms.

"Could really use a plan now Vince," Rachael yelled, emptying the last of her cartridges into the monster to no avail. 

"Here," he said, tossing her his rifle, "cover for me," and he drew a long knife he had strapped under his pant leg. 

"Vince I _hate these_…" she shouted, firing at the monster as Vincent ran around the back of the monster, jumped, and sunk the knife deep into the top of the monster. Instead of screaming, which, it seemed, was impossible for the monster to do anyway, it just flailed it's arms and tail and wings, flying left and right and up a little and then back down. All Vincent was doing, however, was letter gravity finish what he had started, and, hanging onto the handle of the blade with all the strength he had, it slowly sank down the back of the monster and Vincent fell to the ground, running back to his companions. The monster's skin parted and fell to the ground, revealing that it was a mere covering for the hundreds of mucus-covered tentacles that, once on the ground, began searching out flesh to assimilate. The corpses already on the ground of the two Shinra soldiers and the first monster did nicely, as most of the tentacles began to tear apart and rejoin those three bodies. However, one tentacle lashed out among the Turks, and caught Rachael. 

"Rachael!" Tsang screamed, as Vincent started slashing at the tentacle, but in response to that another two were sent straight at him, which he dodged by falling to the ground and rolling away.

"Tsang don't go after her!" Vincent yelled, as the two tentacles probed for a moment longer and then aided in bring the struggling and screaming Rachael into the main body. Vincent thought for a moment and reached into his suit jacket. "Rachael catch!" he screamed, throwing what looked like a video tape at her. She immediately understood, seeing large red digital numbers read ":30" and stopped struggling.

"Go to f****** hell, b****!" she screamed at the monster who now consumed her completely. 

The monster formed, enormously large, looking somewhat like a poorly constructed tent made entirely out of flesh. Vincent looked at Tsang and started running. "It's our time to go," Vincent yelled, and started running down the street. Tsang said nothing, just ran behind Vincent, who was speeding down the street. The monster pursued, though much slower than the Turks could run. Thirty seconds passed, and the monster blew apart. The explosion, in fact, created flames that engulfed several streets and tore apart the two apartment complexes on either side of the street that the monster had been moving on.

Vincent turned back, only for a moment, to look at what had happened, and he smiled. _We'll miss ya kid…_ and ran off.


	6. 6

a/n: Id like to thank CackleRubblePop and The Highwaywoman for their kind comments. I'm a hopeless romantic, much like, at least it seemed to me, Vincent was, so I try to understand him that way. This is written from Lucrecia's point of view, more or less, but only for this chapter. Please keep reading ^^

**6**

_Vincent you can't imagine how sorry I am for all that's happened. I just sit here in this cave, day after day, the reflective surfaces portraying me in the light that comes naturally into here. I hear the rumbling of the waterfall and… Vincent I'm so cold… I've made so many mistakes… my entire life's been one bad decision after another... but sitting here… contemplating my suicide, I've thought of you so much…. Wouldn't it have been so easy for us to just run away then? But that's the past… and this is the present, where I live out the second good decision I've ever made: to keep myself shut up in here until the Jenova cells let me die or I do it myself. Vincent I love you and miss you but… it's good, to be alone in this cave, behind the waterfall and the lagoon. I can't hurt anyone anymore._ _I would ask your forgiveness but that's so much more than I deserve. _

_And the first good decision I made was, of course, to give my heart to you, because you've always wanted the best for it, even when I didn't. Goodbye, my love. _

Professor Gast had been gone for more than an hour with his report from Midgar. Normally he would walk for ten minutes outside the town, since the mountains created interference with his phone, take the calls, which were presumably very short, then walk back. Before he had been gone half an hour at the longest. So this absence was very strange. Lucrecia found it hard to concentrate on the effects of gene tampering with animal cells that were exposed to Mako energy, which required one's full attention anyway. Therefore, when a cat suddenly grew twice its size and then keeled over and died, she became completely flustered and stormed outside to sit in the grove of trees behind the mansion. 

Being there reminded her of Vincent, of how much he loved her, but how angry he was, at the end. She still was unsure whether she made the right decision, but she missed him all the same. It was hard, but she was coping, slowly, with the loss. She began to sob softly, trying to convince herself she was doing so for being careless with the cat.

"Lucrecia?" a voice behind her said, full of compassion.

"Yes professor?" she replied, sniffling and turning her head. 

Professor Gast squatted down and looked at her, serious expression on his face. "I'm going to take you to Junon now, you don't need to pack anything, we're only staying for a few hours," he looked terribly worried.

_God I hope this isn't about dad…_ "Why?" 

He closed his eyes and sighed. "The Turk Vincent Valentine, of his own free will, has blown up two building complexes in Junon. Two hundred and eighty seven dead, one hundred and seventy nine injured."

Lucrecia merely stared, blinked, and continued to stare. She had a completely expressionless face, as if to say "all right, I'm ready to wake up now." The professor continued.

"The Turks's whereabouts of this time are unknown, and…" Gast paused and took a deep breath, "your father, Lucrecia, is missing, presumed dead."

"No he's not… he's not dead…."

"I'm sorry Lucrecia."

"No no my father isn't dead… you must;ve… thought of the wrong apartment complex or maybe he's doing field research or…. Or _something_. My- my father can't be _dead_."

"Come on my dear," the professor began, offering his hand, "they're having a mass funeral, and they've sent a chopper. Come on," the professor began to stand.

"No you don't understand! My father isn't _dead_! He can't've _died_! This is a mistake, no no no this is a mistake!" 

Gast sighed again and looked into her eyes, which were now swelling with tears. "Vincent Valentine killed your father. We don't know who he's working for but we're going to find out and hunt Vincent down. I'm glad you made him leave when you did. It could've been you," he hugged her tightly, and she endured it for a moment before pushing him away.

"No no, Vincent didn't kill my father because my father isn't _dead_! …this is all wrong," she began to shake her head and rock back and forth, her arms wrapped around her knees. "This isn't real, just a dream… just a dream… just a dream."

Professor Gast said nothing, but sat on the ground next to her, and held her, and they swayed back and forth. She wept every so often, before breaking into another round of repeating "no my father's still alive" under her breath. After what seemed like an eternity she looked up into Professor Gast's eyes. "Professor?"

"Mm?"

"Is my father dead? Did Vincent really kill him?" She asked, more tears swelling. The professor merely held her tighter, and she began to cry anew.

***

Hojo was paying more attention to her, since Vincent had left. It was subtle at first; subtle enough for Lucrecia to ignore it, but it grew worse with each passing month. It began with the occasional glance, or his volunteering to help Lucrecia with work when he didn't have to. Conversation was never a favorite pastime between Hojo and Lucrecia, so any time previously they would spend in silence. But now, almost a year after Vincent left, Lucrecia began to worry.

Every time Lucrecia stayed up late to finish an experiment Hojo was there, not exactly helping but instead trying to carry on awkward conversations with his colleague. He would bump into her, making some mild attempt to become flustered as if it were an accident, though Lucrecia _knew_ she had felt his hand somewhere, her butt, her breasts. At first she actually thought they were accidents but the frequency of his accidents told a different story than her first presumption. She was starting to dream he was in her bedroom as she slept, watching her. Once she was so terrified it wasn't a dream that she screamed, and he ran out of the room and dodged into his own. After that Lucrecia never slept soundly again.

When he walked into the room she had shivers down her spine, and she stopped ever staying up late to finish things. She always created some excuse not to be alone in the same room with the lanky black-haired man, and, as such, he tried ever harder to be with her. She spent too many nights waking to the sound of her own screaming in the dark. 

Lucrecia, of course, attempted to downplay her worries, and when Professor Gast asked her what she was having nightmares about, she always said nothing and held him closely; they had grown closer with the time that passed. She had lost the two most important men in her life within a week, and she clung to Gast to replace both of them, which he seemed more than happy to do.

Gast became, to her, father, friend, and lover, all at once. Those things he had become to her in every facet, and Hojo began to realize, very slowly, where Lucrecia was when she was not in her bed at night, and why Lucrecia went to sleep shortly after Professor Gast, leaving Hojo with three hours of work to do on some nights, and jealousy boiled in him. He became moody, shutting himself up in the lab, sleeping only three hours a night at most, always reading and experimenting. He was not the most sociable creature before, but his discovery that Lucrecia and the Professor were lovers began to drive him more insane than he had already been. 

***

More time passed by, as time tends to do whether one is paying attention to it or not, and the trio's research flourished. Hojo had adopted a very pleasant mood since the room had been built, and he became very friendly with Lucrecia, without a hint of the strangeness of his mentality before. They all worked as a team, and the professor told them it would be very soon before they could start working with Jenova cell introduction into human beings, improving their strength and mental capabilities.

Working late into the night was resumed once more, now that Lucrecia had allowed enough time to pass that she began to forget about Hojo, for he seemed to forget about her. Their work, which was often finished at four in the morning, went on as normal: in silence, and Lucrecia felt more at ease with Hojo, though most of the time Professor Gast was there with them both, because, since it was only the three of them, instead of treating Lucrecia better because of there relationship, Gast simply chose to join his subordinates like an equal. 

***

"Lucrecia dear?" Professor Gast said, laying a hand on Lucrecia's shoulder. 

"Mmm?" she responded, turning away from the microscope she was looking through. 

"I'm off to bed, alright?"

"Yeah I'll be up in a sec, gotta finish this," she replied quickly, turning back to the microscope.. He kissed her on the cheek and left. 

Hojo was busy too, though with what she didn't know. She drew the last group of cells that she saw in the microscope and was assorting her papers before she left the lab, and Hojo came to her, very calmly, with two glasses. He smiled, and she smiled back politely, and took one of the glasses as he handed it to her. 

"To the progression of our research," Hojo said jovially.

Lucrecia stared at the red liquid in the glass for a moment and raised her eyebrow. "What is this?"

"Wine, of course," he said, taking a long drink. She did the same, and almost instantly she collapsed in her chair and blacked out.

***

Lucrecia was having a nightmare. She was on the operating table in the lab. She couldn't move. Her mind raced around, frightened and afraid. She had control of none of her muscles, neither in the entirety of her body nor her mouth, so the fact that she wanted, more than anything, to scream, went unnoticed by her vocal cords. She saw Hojo, looming, on top of her, felt his weight. She felt him inside her, and she wanted with the depths of her soul to scream. More than that, though she didn't realize, she wanted to wake up. She wanted to find herself in Professor Gast's arms and cry and tell him how she had had the most horrible nightmare about her colleague. And, for the merest fraction of a second, because it was a very old and almost instinctual feeling, she wanted Vincent there, to protect her from what was happening. And everything went dark again.   

***

Lucrecia woke up, alone, in her own bed, which had not been used in months. She had been saving a scream for several hours, and now, at once, her own screaming awakened her. She remembered, in detail, her dream, and she felt something was wrong; she _knew_ something was wrong, and because of it, when the door opened she quickly gathered all her sheets around her and backed away into the far corner of her room. "Lucrecia?" Professor Gast began.

She stayed silent, and he walked over to her, very slowly. "Lucrecia what's wrong," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. She screamed again.

"Don't _touch_ me!"

"But…"

She began to sob, curling herself into a ball. "_Go_!" she screamed, and he left without another word.

Lucrecia did not speak for three weeks. She was like a silhouette against the walls when she moved, and any sight of Hojo was like light bearing down on that silhouette, causing it to disappear to another room.  


	7. 7

A/n: So this is the end, I truly hope you enjoyed it. Recommend me to your friends and all that jazz ^^. And I'll be writing another fic soon so please read that too. And here is the end to The Nightmare Begins…

**7**

_We stand together in this altar, in a small chapel within a likewise small town, and this priest in white robes has a book open and is reading it before us. I squeeze your hand, and though I cannot see you there I know it is your hand that I squeeze; your voice I hear saying "I do" with the utmost confidence. A feeling swells in my heart, and a smile shines upon my face. The priest asks me a question, I do not hear him, but I reply with the words you used moments ago._

_And the most painful thing about it all, thinking about that day as I'm locked away in here, is that I know none of that was real._

From Vincent's understanding Tsang was given permanent duty within Midgar, which, considering the city's size, could have been worse. As for Vincent, he was assigned to do a number of odd jobs over the two years after what came to be known as the Junon Terrorist Bombing. One week he'd be performing maintenance checks on a Mako reactor, the next week he'd be on the other side of the world leading a dozen Shinra troops into a raid of some sort, and the next week he'd be sitting in a Midgar office doing nothing but breathing. Shinra tried to keep him occupied, since, according to Professor Gast, Vincent knew enough about the Jenova cells to put the entire company in jeopardy. Vincent of course reminded his superiors that Turks have various oaths that prevent them from leaking such information, but they were too paranoid to listen to anything Vincent had to say. 

 He was in a helicopter, flying to a place dubbed Rocket Town, when his phone rang. Vincent picked it up, and he heard a very familiar voice. "Vincent I just checked some files. They're going to use Lucrecia as a surrogate mother for some Jenova project. You and Rachael _were_ my family, whether I showed it or not. Goodbye," and the phone went dead.

A million thoughts swirled within Vincent's mind, about Lucrecia, seeing her giving birth to some monster; thoughts of Tsang, and how horribly he treated him. Vincent looked to the south, and saw Mount Nibel. _I'm coming Lucrecia, I swear. They can't do this to you_

***

Vincent stopped the truck at the foot of Mount Nibel. The weather-beaten red truck was sitting outside a house when Vincent saw it, and as soon as he could he stole it, and started driving south. Night was falling, not that he ever slept, and he started his trek up the mountain. The gray rocks formed pathways and tunnels in and out of the mountain, and soon he was lost completely. His head swum, always with these images of Lucrecia dying in labor or some grotesque thing ripping it's way through her abdomen. Twice he stopped and threw up over the mountainside, but he wouldn't let himself be deterred. 

He found Nibelheim asleep when he entered it from the mountain. The moon had risen high when he finally made it to the Shinra mansion, slowly, quietly. The ancient floorboards gave no hint of his walking on them, which subconsciously startled Vincent, since when _he_ stayed in the mansion the floor squeaked every time it was granted half a chance. He worked his way up to the bedroom on the east side of the house, and carelessly the secret panel had been left wide open. _They must trust that no one's going to come in here anymore, I guess…_

He walked down the staircase, again, silently, and reached the underground passage. He could hear two voices distinctly, once of them he loved, one of which he didn't. Like a panther he walked, stealthily, draped in shadow, and slipped inside the room at the end of the passageway; the lab.

"Good evening Lucrecia," Vincent said softly, which caused her to jump out of her skin with a shriek.

"What the hell are _you_ doing here?!" Professor Gast asked, placing an arm around the Professor,

"I was informed you were planning on putting Jenova cells into Lucrecia's body," Vincent said, somehow keeping his calm composure.

"I don't know how you found out about that, _Vincent Valentine_," Gast said, sneering. Lucrecia looked into Vincent's eyes and clung more closely to Gast. 

"You killed my father….. you- you cheated on me and used me and you left me and you _murdered my father_, what _are_ you doing here?" she cried, laying her head on Gast's shoulder. "I don't want to see him anymore…"

Vincent looked at the pair, eyebrow raised. "Are you carrying his child?"

"Yes," Gast quickly answered, sneer ever present on his face.

"And do you plan to infect this child which has yet to breathe the air of the world, with those cells of the alien Jenova?" Vincent asked, still calm.

"That's none of your goddamn business. It's confidential.," Gast replied.

"A yes or no will suffice, Professor," Vincent said, drawing his rifle.

"Going to shoot me now, Vincent? She'll really love you then right?" Gast said, smiling.

Vincent put the barrel level with Gast's head. "Yes, or no."

"yes."

"I cannot let you do that."

"So you'll shoot him?" Lucrecia shrieked, pushing Gast out of the way. "No no Vincent. My _love_," she said, dripping with sarcasm. "Shoot _me_ first. Go on!"

Vincent blinked, and lowered his rifle. "I cannot do that Lucrecia. You know this well enough."

"We are both scientists Vincent. You can't stop us," Gast said, putting his arm on Lucrecia's shoulder. 

"Get out Vincent. I don't want to see you again," Lucrecia said with resolve. 

"I was ordered to kill your father," Vincent said, after a long pause. She broke into tears and held Gast.

"Liar! Just," she sniffled "just _go!_"

Vincent looked into the sobbing eyes of the woman he loved and turned around. "I have always loved you Lucrecia. Goodbye." And he walked out of the mansion.

***

The child was born in the Nibelheim hotel, and Shinra doctors were there to assist. The infant was named Sephitorth, and was taken from Lucrecia as soon as it was born. There was no external evidence of the massive amount of Jenova cells within the infant's body, so it was presumed that the Professor had done everything properly. For the first few weeks the child would be treated as normal infants were, so the medical team took the baby back to Midgar while Gast and Hojo cleaned up the mansion somewhat, lest some nosey townsperson came snooping. 

Lucrecia was confined to the hotel, where she recovered, or so they had hoped. The Jenova cells had replicated themselves into her body and she was getting sicker and sicker. After three days she collapsed, no breathing, no pulse. 

Vincent saw the townspeople carry her out on a makeshift stretcher from the mountainside.

***

"_GAST_!" Vincent roared, storming into the lab. As soon as the door opened, however, Vincent was shot and collapsed. 

"Poor boy," Gast began, dragging Vincent over to the operating table. "You know, it's a shame I had to lie to her so much. She really did love you. But I f***** her, again and again and again," Gast said, driving the scalpel into Vincent's chest. "Now we've done some work with genes, and lets see what we can make of you," Vincent's heart ceased to beat, and darkness closed over him.

***

Vincent awoke on the operating table. Something was different about him. He hopped off the table and felt strange, as if something was inside him that beckoned release. His head was swimming, something just didn't feel right. Something moved inside his mind, like a thought but faster, so that every time Vincent made an attempt to think about it the thing eluded him, but finally it stopped running, and instead grew inside his mind until finally it consumed him. He lost control of himself. He roared, and the blue suit he had worn was torn to shreds as muscles began to bulge, his skeletal structure mutated, and skin was covered with purple hair. 

Vincent's eyes flashed red and he ran off to find something, anything, to eat, to consume. He ran down the corridor and saw some soldiers, and he became very hungry.

***

_And then I awoke here, Lucrecia. Back in my human form, in clothes that I haven't worn since my days as a civilian. He must've done something to me.. or maybe I'm really dead. I don't know. But the fact is I woke here in this coffin, and I screamed and screamed for help. And when the dark shroud of sleep finally closed over me… my nightmares began._


End file.
